[LARAMIE BOOMERANG]
BY CARRIE HADERLIE / LBEDIT11@LARAMIEBOOMERANG.COM • SATURDAY, JULY 31, 2010
Albany County Sentate District 9 candidates Jodi Guerin and Chris Rothfuss participated in the League of Women Voters forum Thursday at the Albany County Public Library.
Both are running as Democrats. No Republican candidate filed for the seat, so the primary winner will likely be elected in the general election. A write-in Republican candidate would need to receive 25 votes to be placed on the general election ballot.
Guerin and Rothfuss answered questions Thursday, beginning with one about Albany County’s considerable wind resources.
Should we be aggressively pursuing wind energy as a resource?
Guerin said the state should pursue wind energy development but needs to think strategically about how to get that energy out of Albany County and the state.
“I am concerned … that we establish corridors for wind energy transmission lines that make sense,” Guerin said. “I know there is a lot of concern amongst landowners who might have eminent domain issues in the future as they deal with transmission lines, and I think that’s a fair concern.”
Guerin also said she is concerned with the taxation structure developed for wind energy corporations.
“We need to take a look at it from a business standpoint and make an evaluation of what the energy industry can bear, and then stay slightly below that,” Guerin said. “We don’t want to drive them out, but then again, we need to generate enough revenue that we support our communities and our state.”
Rothfuss said he also supports wind energy development but is concerned about respecting Wyoming’s views.
“When you are driving down the road and your view of the mountain range is blocked by a lot of wind turbines, that might not have been the best planning and purpose of where we are going to put those wind turbines,” Rothfuss said.
Rothfuss also said the state government needs to consider what is good for Wyoming and its people.
“Up until this last legislative session, the people of Wyoming haven’t been getting a lot out of the wind power. This is largely West Coast corporations like PacifiCorp developing wind turbines that are built in other states, leasing property — we get a little bit out of the leases — from Wyoming, and then exporting the energy to other states. I didn’t hear a lot about Wyoming people in there,” Rothfuss said. “Unless we are hearing a lot about Wyoming people, it is not a beneficial industry for the state of Wyoming.”
Do you support or reject the Arizona immigration law, and do you think Wyoming should have something similar?
Rothfuss said Arizona is a very different place from Wyoming when it comes to immigration.
“The reason they have the aggressive law that they put on the books is largely because they are looking at drug trafficking coming across the border directly,” Rothfuss said. “They see violent crime as their reality due to the immigration. They don’t see a federal response that is sufficient, so they have an aggressive immigration law.”
Wyoming does have immigration concerns, but not drug-related immigration issues, he said.
“We don’t need the same degree of legislation,” Rothfuss said.
Guerin said she doesn’t think the federal government has a good system in place to deal with people coming across the borders illegally, but said she is uncomfortable with the Arizona legislation.
“One of my questions would be: Can’t we do something to allow the flow to be a little more smooth for people who are law-abiding who aren’t coming here to do anything harmful to our country? It seems like if we did that, we might do ourselves a lot of favors,” Guerin said. “And I don’t think we need to be stopping people on the streets, and I do have a concern that once we start doing that, and asking for everybody’s paperwork, that we’ve gone down the wrong path.”
If you were dictator for the day, what one policy of regulation with state government would you like to change?
In her 7½ years on the Laramie City Council, Guerin said she has worked hard on securing funding for local municipalities and is also specifically interested in youth and economic development.
“I have a vision in our state that starts with the youth and ends with a more prosperous economy, and a more diverse economy in the energy industry,” Guerin said. “I would like to see us implement a curriculum at the grade school level that taught children the skills they need to problem solve and learn to be entrepreneurs.”
Rothfuss said he would give serious thought to what he considers one of the most challenging issues facing Wyoming today and in the future: health care.
“(I would) reduce health care costs dramatically,” Rothfuss said. “If I was the dictator for one day, I would take those health care premiums to about 50 percent of what they are now, which is a much more reasonable value.”
What are you planning to do to diversify Wyoming’s economy?
Rothfuss said Wyoming needs to make a long-term commitment to excel in a specific area — like the commitment Singapore made to develop nanotechnology.
“We have energy. We are good there, we’ve got a good investment there,” Rothfuss said. “We need to find another industry that is orthogonal to it so that it doesn’t compete with energy, and so that if energy is failing, it is not necessarily failing as well, and invest in it.
“We need a long-term plan, we need depth instead of breadth in investment, and we can get that done,” Rothfuss said.
Guerin said she believes Wyoming’s future lies in adding value and developing new technology to the state’s energy industry.
“We as a policy-making body can support the organizations and the infrastructure that helped move that forward,” Guerin said. “What I would like to see us do is continue to work with the Wyoming Business Council, continue to invest in the businesses, with those kinds of strategies in mind, so that we can diversify our energy industry.”